


all your monsters in the night

by crucios



Series: restart the heart you gave me 'verse [3]
Category: One Direction (Band), X Factor RPF
Genre: Depression, Gen, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:12:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crucios/pseuds/crucios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Liam decides he wants to kill himself, it’s four am and his tea has gone cold.</p><p>timestamp to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/413440">restart the heart you gave me</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	all your monsters in the night

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this quite a while ago and kept coming back to it every so often and then leaving it again, because i was just never happy with it. i still don't know if i am, but this was one of the most important things that i felt, for me personally, i needed to write in this 'verse. so here it is.
> 
> thanks once again to _plasticskies_ for the beta and the general encouragement and just being a very wonderful friend.

When Liam decides he wants to kill himself, it’s four am and his tea has gone cold.

It's not really an epiphany; it doesn't come as anything remotely close to fear or shock or whatever other feelings he thinks you’re supposed to have when you decide to _kill yourself_. It mostly just comes with a thought of _oh okay, that makes sense_. Honestly, he doesn’t give it much thought, which—well, he thinks that probably means that maybe subconsciously he’s already given it _a lot_ of thought, or something.

It’s a little bit funny really, Liam thinks, because he was always meant to be the sensible one—the poster boy for level-headedness and reliability. Not that he thinks of this as anything _but_ sensible – because it’s completely sensible when he considers the other options, like another day of feeling like he’s on the edge of _falling_ ; he might as well just fall and be done with it – but he doesn’t think anyone else will see it that way.

Not that it matters.

He doesn’t spare a thought for his bandmates (sort-of-bandmates? former bandmates? it doesn’t especially matter anymore) – or maybe there’s a flicker of a name, but that’s all part of it really, isn’t it? – or his family, because he's the one living with this, not them. He doesn't really care how selfish it might be either; he can’t really afford to, or maybe he’s just done with being self _less_.

Mostly—well, mostly he's just really _tired_. He’s tired of the pain and of missing people and of watching the boy – man, he corrects himself; they’ve all grown up a bit – he loves drink himself to death because he massively screwed him up. So in the end it doesn’t particularly take a lot of self-convincing for Liam to press down the blade that bit harder this time, just a sort of cold resignation.

When Liam opens his eyes, he's in a hospital bed; his mother is by his side with vacant and tired eyes. He very nearly (but not quite) laughs, because of course—of course he couldn't even bloody _kill himself_ right.

His mum cries and holds him for an hour (or maybe it’s longer, time is a little lost on him really, he’s not even sure what day it is—or month?) but Liam doesn't shed so much as a tear. He feels hollow and angry and there’s a cold liquid-panic bubbling uncomfortably underneath his skin, because he shouldn’t even _be_ here.

After making Liam promise approximately _twenty times_ to never do it again, his mum finally slinks away and sends in Zayn, who is less cautious and considering about the whole thing.

"You could have _died_ , you fucking idiot," Zayn all but shouts, his voice terribly loud in the box room. Liam almost wants to block his ears like a child.

He frowns instead. "Yeah, that was kind of the idea."

"You're a fucking twat, Liam," Zayn says, all anger and sharp edges. Liam can see his hands shaking. "You're a coward and a fucking _twat_."

"Okay," Liam says slowly, his stomach twisting a little. He doesn't really know what Zayn wants from him; he can’t give him an apology because Liam's not going to apologise for _wanting to die_.

Zayn gives him a look of disbelief laced with something that’s probably disappointment, like he can't really believe Liam has nothing more to say, and Liam has to look away.

“I wrote you a letter?” he tries, because he’s sure he did, he has a hazy recollection of it anyway—pen, paper, _Zayn._

“Oh _cheers_ , nevermind then,” Zayn says scathingly, and he’s pacing a bit now, “you could be _dead_ , but at least I have a fucking letter.”

Liam stares at the wall and shuffles further under the blanket in the vague hope that it might swallow him up. “I’m sorry.”

"You've no fucking clue what you've done, have you?" Zayn snipes, and Liam flinches at the venom in his voice but keeps his eyes on the white-washed wall until it blurs into the floor.

Zayn just shakes his head in exasperation; his hands are still shaking and his eyes are rimmed red, Liam notices. "Your mum's been beside herself, your sisters are a fucking mess—Ruth hasn’t even said a bloody word.”

“I didn’t mean to—” Liam starts, but it sounds hopeless even to his own ears. He didn’t mean to hurt them? Well, no; but he did anyway. Of course he did.

Zayn blinks but ignores him, carrying on. “Niall was a wreck on the phone, he's flying over from Ireland now. But you didn't think about any of us, just thought that at least you wouldn't be around to bloody see it."

Liam shakes his head. "It wasn't. It wasn't like that."

"No, shut up. I'm not even close to done, mate," Zayn snaps. Liam promptly shuts his mouth. "I had to call Louis and tell him. I had to call him and tell him that you— _Christ_.”

Liam doesn’t say anything, he thinks he should but his throat feels sharp like he’s swallowed half a litre of shattered glass. He tries to breathe through the shards and lets Zayn take a moment. When he finally meets Liam’s eyes again they’re entirely more _sad_ than anything resembling anger.

“I had to listen to him cry down the phone for two hours, Li, until—he wasn’t even making fucking _sense_ by the end. Harry dragged it away from him and they’ve had to postpone their tour and—"

Zayn cuts himself off too abruptly, almost as if he's said a bit too much. Liam stares at him, and his eyes are stinging; his mind gets stuck on Louis and, _fuck_ , this really isn’t how it was supposed to happen. He shouldn’t even—

Zayn sinks down into the horrible maroon armchair by his bed – almost in slow motion, Liam thinks, the way people do on telly when they’ve just been told something horrific – and covers his face with the bend of his arm. Liam’s brain stops dead because he’s pretty sure Zayn might be _crying_ , muffled sobs shaking his entire body. He doesn't really want to ask, though. He’s not convinced _are you okay?_ covers it.

When Zayn finally stops shaking, he looks up carefully. His eyes are red and Liam only just notices then how horribly exhausted they are—like he hasn’t slept in a week, or maybe two.

"I thought you were gonna die, Li,” he breathes, and Liam looks back to the wall. “There was blood everywhere and I didn't—fucking _hell_ , I thought you were gonna _die_."

Liam snaps his head up then and feels his heart stop, almost. "You found me," he says, and it's not a question.

Zayn blinks, and he mutely stands up from the chair, his arms – they’re thinner than they were before, Liam thinks, his t-shirt hanging too baggy and loose – pulling him up slowly, and then climbs onto the bed beside Liam. He presses in close to Liam’s side and fists his hand into his hospital gown and curls himself around him until Liam’s not sure whose limbs are whose anymore.

Liam takes a breath and uses what little strength he has to wrap an arm around Zayn, and then clasps his hand tightly with the other.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers, only just audibly.

Zayn’s breath is warm on Liam’s shoulder when he says Liam’s name, all quiet and desperate and twisting at Liam’s insides. “Don’t do it again, okay?” Zayn mumbles, and Liam holds tighter and closes his eyes, because he can’t even promise _that_.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again.

He whispers the word over and over like a prayer until Zayn’s breathing heavy into his shoulder, tentatively asleep, and then he closes his own eyes and tries hard not to think of Louis and all the things he can’t take back

(this is just another one on the list).


End file.
